Tentative
by Cassie Jamie
Summary: It all started with one phrase - 'Grow up, Greg.'
1. Chapter One

Disclaimer: Not mine…uh huh.

Claimer: I own all of Greg's family.

Author's Notes: Okay, so my friend Gab sent me an e-mail pleading for a Greg-centric fic.  I have never done one before, nor had I even _thought_ of attempting one.  But I did and this was the end result.  As you can see, it's a WIP because it's being writing five minutes at a time during my couch, letting my butt expand and my poor ankle heal up.  Will it be finished? Yes.  Do I know when? Heck no.  Because I've got _Ancillae_ and _Solace and __Heather Hidden to finish writing._

-*-*-

Tentative

Chapter One

-*-*-

            "Grow up, Greg." Warrick told me the beginning of this shift.  He was upset, true, and I normally don't take those words to heart.  But it pained deep.

            Burned deep in my gut like my lighters used to when I'd burn them into my once-pure skin.

            I don't know why I started hurting myself, but it lasted seven of the longest years of my life.  Then one day it just stopped, because Sara was noticing when the wounds would chaff within the confines of my shirt.

            I still get the urge to do it again.  Everyday.  In the shower, in the car, in the middle of the fucking lab.  But I don't give in to the urge anymore.  Or I haven't yet.

            "Grow up, Greg."

            Oh, but I am grown up.  I grew up long before I had to.

            I had to defend myself against others when they accused me of being a science geek, because, yes, I _did_ get teased even though I was a popular boy.  I had to learn to cook for myself because my parents weren't the best in the world, even when they weren't drunk.  They weren't alcoholics, just habitual drunks.  My twin sister was always being picked on because of her hand-me-down tomboy clothes, as were my younger brothers, so I had to discover quickly how to fight for them.

            Petty squabbles.  Bloody fists.  A combination that no child should wield, except I did as there was me, the oldest son who was the most responsible in the family, and no one else.  Our grandparents on both sides remain in Russia; my uncles and aunts scattered worldwide, though none live in the states.  It's just us here, no support aside from the monetary supplements that my grandfather sends to us every week, once or twice depending on the time of year.

            I grew up to care for my siblings so they'd survive past childhood.  I didn't get to play games like soccer or flag football until I was a sophomore in high school, didn't get to go out on dates, or even have a car because if I did, it'd be a driveway adornment as I was too broke to pay for gas.

            "Greg?"

            I look up and see Catherine looking me, as I had begun tracing a burn pattern through my lab coat.  I stare a little nervously at her, hoping my defense mechanisms fall into place asap.

            "You okay?"

            Nod numbly and dumbly, "But of course!" There's got to be a fake smile plastered on my face now, to make her see that I'm acting…normally.  Well, as normal as I've portrayed myself to be.

            She peaks an eyebrow as she only can, and sighs, "Alright.  I need results on this as soon as possible." The blonde hands me a bit of gray-blue paint, then eyes me before leaving.  She can't decide if I'm lying or not but there's nothing she can do since I am an adult and not Lindsay or any other person she can order information from with a flick of her tongue.

            Standing there watching her leave I wonder when I became two people.  When I became Greggo, the Las Vegas crime lab tech, and Luka Gregori, the oldest son of a Norwegian-Russian family that I had abandoned.

            Probably happened the day Evdokia and I graduated from UC Berkley, when I packed up and moved; when my twin sister kissed my cheek and held our youngest brother, Aleksey, in her arms while my other brother, Nikolai, waved goodbye, pearly tears dripping down each of their cheeks.  I haven't seen any of my siblings once in the five years that I've been away.

            I start the mass spec on the sample Cath gave me, and sit back on my stool.  Think about how my life changed so radically from what it could have been.  Perhaps I should've taken my grandfather's offer to move back to Russia when I graduated college, should've gone to work at the distillery.

            Warrick walks past, glances in at me and stops in his tracks, "Greggo?  You alright, man?" He asks like he didn't argue with me this morning.  Like he didn't yell at me for an hour while I listened and let him rant, then turned on me when he was still angry and devoid of anything to be mad at.  Like he's a good friend who knows who I am.

            "Never better." The forced grin's returned like it's got a mind of its own.  I've gotten good at maintaining this ruse for the others; it keeps them happy to think that I am exactly what I seem to be.

            He nods, continues toward the break room without another question.  At least Catherine stuck around for a few minutes and gave me something to do.

            Tiredly, I watch the clock.  There's five minutes left before I can get the hell out of this lab and away from people who know nothing.  Maybe I can call my brother tonight.  His graduation is coming up; I should call.  He left a message on my twenty-eighth birthday, wishing me 'much vodka and a happy night' in the Russian our grandfather taught us as toddlers.

            Four minutes.

            Thank heavens.

            The machinery whirrs on around me, and Archie's looking at me through the glass confines of his whole audio-visual sector.  He mouths something at me.  I can't tell what the hell he's saying, however, so I smile and nod and pretend to be working.

            Then there's a voice behind me, "Greg, what's your full name?" Sara asks, staring at a piece of paper.

            "You know my name." I retort.

            She rolls her eyes, "I need it for it for this thing that the county's making up for the lab.  Some sort of plaque." She finally lets herself look at me, and I see she's lying, but I'll humor her anyway because she's my friend.  Or I like to think she is.

            Okay, so I wish she were.

            "G-r-e-g-o-r-i Sanders."

            "What's your middle name?" She begs to know almost.  I seriously wonder if I should be questioning her motives, except I don't, choosing to tell her the information she seeks.

            "L-u-k-a." I spell it swiftly and remember a time before I started going by my grandmother's maiden name, a time that I was still known as Luka Gregori Petrov, the son of Ivan and Margot.  Evdokia still goes by Petrova, Niko's a Petrov, but all the rest use Sanders.  We're too ashamed to remain with our father's name.

            The brunette gives me a genuine gaze, "It's a nice name."

            I relent and reply that it is, turning to the scope.  She's gone, near-silent, with the slight pitter-patter of her sneakers where they grace the monochromatic linoleum.  No word of exiting, no praise for the work I do day in and day out, often working overtime with dayshift's tech so they can finish their cases as soon as they can.

            Ingrates.

            Two minutes.

            One of my tests spews out results for Grissom, yet I don't page him.  I stuff the results into my back pocket, run for the locker room and change, slip on my open-toed, leather sandals.  Throw my lab coat into the metal encasement.

            I don't want to be here anymore.  I won't do overtime for them ever again.

            They don't deserve it.

            There's a picture of Aleksey and his twin sister, Tassie, taped up on the door from their birthday.  They're six now, and they still don't know who I am – which I don't blame them for since they were just a year old the last time they saw me.

            Because I chose to leave them.

            "Cute kids.  Cousins?" Nick implores from behind me.

            Don't these people know how to _knock_?!  It's called common decency to warn other people when you're about to enter a room there could possibly be nudity going on.

            "Siblings." I don't turn to face him.  Instead I retrieve the picture of my family from the reunion this January.  It was in my family's ancestral home in Archangel, at the distillery my grandfather owns.  Everyone's lined up in birth order (sans me) and smiling, even though they're wearing heavy coats and boots to their knees.

            I point out each one as I relay their names, "That's my twin sister, Evdokia, but everyone calls her Kia.  Then Kiev, Mikhail, Fyodor, Peter, and Nikolai." He nods at each, "And the blonde with the two little kids is my mother.  The boy's Aleksey and the girl's Tassie."  I try to stroke their hair through the gloss finished flash of time.

            "Where's your dad?"

            "He's…uh…too sick to travel anymore.  He couldn't go.  He stayed with me for the two weeks Mama was away." I replace the sleek image in its place, parked between a notebook's blank pages.  Where it communicates with other images of my family and old friends from the past, now nearly-forgotten.

            "I'm sorry." He trips out, leans up against the lockers, "Is he…"

            "He's doing okay.  's not like he has to do much nowadays.  Retired once I got out of college." I finger the necklace I keep under my shirt, "My grandfather pays for everything now.  He knows Papa's got precious time left so he makes sure that no one has to worry.  There's food and clothes and all the other things people need.

            "We don't want him to die crying." Suddenly the fact that someone in the department now knows about my family hits hard, "Sorry.  I shouldn't have told you that." I apologize, profuse with thick-balled emotion.  
            Stokes lays a hand on my shoulder, "It's okay.  Everyone gets homesick.  If you ever need to talk, you know where to find me."

            "Sure." I pull the paper from my pocket, "Could you give this to Grissom?  I'm exhausted and I don't want to deal with him."

            He takes it, "Get some sleep and call home." He instructs, rubs my neck like Kiev did when I was too sick to move, and takes his leave.  I want to call him back and beg for some more time to talk, but I need to escape this lab and its occupants before I lose my fucking mind.

-*-*-

*v* Cassie Jamie *v*

csimiami@cassie-jamie.com


	2. Chapter Two

-*-*-

Tentative

Chapter Two

-*-*-

            My sparse home greets me as I stumble through the front door.  It isn't much, but I love the floor-plan of the ranch-style building.  My bedroom is a small open loft, up a set of ten stairs; my couch is pushed beneath it with a barrage of garage sale chairs in odd groupings with the television.  My piano, my one real splurge, is pushed against the wall near the door.  The kitchen is in one corner, the dining room in the center of it all.

            The phone is ringing.  I grab it as I wander toward my bedroom, but I don't button the cordless on.  The caller ID reads 'Unavailable', so I wait for the answering machine to pick up and warn me of who is accosting me now.

            **"Hi, Greg.****  It's Grissom."** He sighs, continues, **"Nick came to me after the shift to tell me your Dad's sick.  I think that's why you've been so preoccupied lately.  If you need to take some time off, I'll understand.  We'll see you tonight."** There's another pause, **"If you want to talk, we're all here for you."** Then the phone clicks as he hangs up.

            I toss the phone and throw myself onto the bed.

            Contrary to what I could feel, I still trust Nick Stokes thoroughly.  He did what he had to do because he needed someone to guide him.  He clings to his mentor on the hopes that he'll come up with some semblance to the great Dr. Grissom.

            I wish I had that.  When I was younger or during these present days.  Just have someone there to help me.  Help Kia and I when one of the boys would get sick and we were left trying to get to the hospital through a series of bus rides, help when the gas and electric got turned off while we tried to find _something_ to feed which ever infant was screaming with hunger.

            Somehow I have acquired the old silver Zippo with my initials engraved from its home within the confines of my nightstand drawer.  My mother gave it to me as a graduation present when I moved on from Junior High; I don't think she ever forsaw the possibility that it could be used for alternate purposes.  Too bad considering she made me start doing this to myself.

            "My friend." I lisp to it and flick it on without second thought.

            The flame dances and tilts from side to side.  Taunt me, laugh at me, love me.  And I lay it closer and closer until the skin on my stomach bubbles.  It _burns_ away at the cells and my thoughts.

            I have few real friends nowadays.  A girl from high school, a few boys from college, and an ex-girlfriend.  No one who can make me feel like I'm getting the childhood which was stolen from me at a tender age when I should've been declaring my love for trucks and planes, begging for them for my birthday.

            Phone rings again.  Reminds me that there's a world outside my harbored memories, where there's coworkers who need things yesterday and bills to be paid.

            **"Greg, it's Catherine and Sara.  We went out for breakfast at Leo's.  Lindsay would like to know if you could join us.  But I'm guessing you went straight to sleep.  See you later."**

            I wonder why my father's impending death has suddenly made them care.  They didn't before.  I was just silly Greg who gave them test results and drove them to insanity some days trying to act happy so I'd _be_ happy.

            When I was six, my father first picked up the bottle.  When I was seven, my mom started.  When I was twenty and about two years from getting out of college, I burned myself with a match to make me feel something more that the crushing depression I was living with.  When I was twenty-five, my parents ended their drinking binges; my father started to become ill.  When I was twenty-seven, I stopped burning and made my peace with my parents.

            And now that I am twenty-eight I've picked up my flames again.

            Funny.  Because I never thought I'd be here again.  Alone in the world with nothing that can put a stupid fucking smile on my face.

            Through the stinging pains, I search a hand around my floor to find the phone and dial out Niko's cellphone.  It rings once, twice, three times until that post-puberty voice comes through the line.

            **"Hello?"** He picks up and yells out for 'Everyone to shut the hell up!'.

            He's something like I used to be, while managing to be completely different.  A paradox-enigma of a child who didn't live the same life I did – I made damn sure he wouldn't.

            "Hey, bro." I wheeze out.

            **"Luka?****  Hey!  What's up?"**

            I grin mirthlessly at that.  Glad he cannot see, "Not much.  Just wanted to call and tell you congratulations on graduating.  You and your friends."

            **"Thanks!  Are…are you coming to see us?  You know, get our diplomas?  There's gonna be a party that day too."** He sounds so hopeful that it breaks my heart.

            I can't tell him no again.

            "I think I am.  I haven't talked to Mama yet, but I just have to ask my boss for time off."

            **"You mean it?  'Coz the ceremony is June twenty-eighth around noon."** My brother immediately tells me.

            "I've missed you guys and I wanna see everyone so badly.  I'm definitely coming.  My boss'll gimme the time off since he found out about Papa."

            **"Good.  I want you to be here when I tell everyone which college I've finally decided on.  I gotta go.  Call me tomorrow?"**

            "Yeah.  Later."

            He hangs up.  My darling brother hates to say goodbye, loathes the word and never says it.  Goodbye would mean forever; a real goodbye is to the dead.  He knows that pain.  He's buried his girlfriend already and it bites at his young soul.

            Once more I am left to stare at the ceiling with renewed bitterness and dark thoughts the world experienced an age ago.  My skin burns again, the stench rapidly exiting out the windows above my bed.  Nauseating, yet comforting.  A scent I want to hate but can't.

            The scent I have forever equated with death since the accident when I was a child.  When a summer vacation with an uncle in the center of Siberia ended in funerals and hospital visits.  I still have the scars on my thighs, my back, courtesy of licking orange-n-red fire.

            I flick the lighter closed, settle it on the floor beside my slippers.

            I'm so tired.  So worn out and ready to join the choir invisible.  Yet I can't because I have to stay here, chained imperceptibly to the lab and to a past that refuses to release me.

            Grissom told me once that we don't control our fates.  That we must learn how to best deal with the world's cruelty.  Unfortunately, I never learned anything more than to hide behind a mask and ignore emotion.  And that never really works well.

            Aria left me over that trivial crap, left me over my way of working through life.  One day she was here, cooking breakfast for me, then one day she was gone and I became more alone.

            Sick of this life.

            Tired of fighting for nothing, for someone to ask me to go somewhere more interesting than the Trace Lab to get them test results.

            Shut up, brain!

            I think I yelled that.  I can't tell if I did or not; doesn't matter thought, because no neighbor ever comes to my door to see that I'm alright.  They don't even say hello when I stop to get my mail from the box.

            "Listen to yourself, Greg." I rub my eyes, and glare blearily at my ceiling fan as I sit up straighter in the tousled covers, "Nearing thirty and turning into a total nut job."

            The machine picks up one more time and I know who it is, by the beginning rant of Russian and Norwegian mixed like they belonged together.  Then, eye-of-the-hurricane-calmly, my mother continues in rough-sounding English, **"Don't make any promises you are not intending to keep, Luka.  His heart won't take it if you say you are coming and do not show up."** Then she hangs up.

            Damnit, I'm crying.  Moronic tears.  They never fix anything, except break more souls when you plead for the pain to end.  When you plead with your mother to let you go because you can't live with the drinking anymore, but she just grips your arm tighter and tighter until it fractures beneath her touch.

            "Stop it!  Stop it!  Stop it!" I grind out at the edge of my breathing.

            A little voice in my head demands to be acknowledged.  I neglect it.

-*-*-

            "Hey, Greg." Sara walks in with her nose buried in a file.  There's an evidence bag hanging from between her fingers, "Do you think you have time to do something for me?"

            "Depends on what it is." I ask, not caring that I'm not acting at all like Greggo, "I…uh…have to find Grissom in a little while."

            She removes the folder from her face, "Taking time off?"

            "Yeah.  I haven't seen my brothers and sisters in five years.  Haven't met wives and nephews and nieces." I catch her gaze, "I figure it's time to see if I'm still welcome in the family."

            "You've seen you mom and dad though?"  
            I nod, "Mama brought Papa down in January so we could bond." The printer spews out papers at me, a few slip to the floor.  I scramble for them, set them down on the table, and see that she's gone from here but left me not the evidence bag.  The file with a sticky-note attached to the cover.

            Greg: Please fill out the pages in here.  Thanks man.  For everything you do.  – The Team

            "Oh-kay." I open the manila object, look at a couple of surveys on the Lab, on my job, and on my coworkers.  Then at the bottom is something scribbled in the harrowed handwriting of Miss Sidle.  My name.  My full name.

            I have to know what is going on around here.  When I get back from Cali.

            There's nothing else to run, which is unique considering the usual amount of overload I am handed, but appreciated that Dayshift must've finished _their _work for once.  So I settle into the chair that appeared in this part of the Lab an hour ago and begin filling in all the papers.

            Sara…A workaholic that does her job as best she can, unwilling to leave a case unfinished because she wants perpetrator to receive punishment at the hands of a just court.

            Warrick…An indispensable member of the team.  He works some overtime when warranted, but has learned to separate himself from the work.

            Nick…Still learning all he can.  His skills grow with every case.  No doubt he will someday be a supervisor.

            Catherine…Protective and caring, even with her job, refuses to let any opportunity to catch the suspect slip through her fingers.  Loyal.

            Grissom…Highly intelligent, understanding, and traps the suspect with words.  Normally manages to stay a professional distance from the victims or the criminal, unless children or battered wives are involved.

            Simple shoestring sentences and words that describe the people I work with.  A bit sad.

            I dot the 'i' in my name, then turn my eyesight to see if any thing else is done and I notice Warrick standing in the doorway, "I don't have your DNA done yet, but I think Tina has…"

            He shakes his head, "I wanted to apologize for yesterday.  It was uncalled for when I told you to grow up.  Your dad's sick, you're understandably preoccupied."

            "Thanks." I eek out a tiny smile.

            "Sara said you're taking time off."

            "Yup.  My brother's graduating from high school and he wants me to be there.  Figure it'll be good to spend some time with him and the rest of my family.  My grandfather's gonna lose his mind when I walk in to the house.  He was pissed that I didn't go to the family reunion." I rise and stretch, closing the folder.

            "Oh." He replies awkwardly, "Well, I'll see you 'round."

            "Guess so." I grin dismally and he goes, leaving me alone again.

            Like everyone before.

            The clock chirps the seconds, the minutes, the hours of my containment away.  Clicks, ticks, endless annoying sounds.

            I scratch my belly where the scab has begun to form, where the aloe worked to soothe and failed miserably like I did in Pre-school when I arrived, speaking Russian and refusing to learn anything they tried to teach.

            It's quiet and desperate in here; people are whispering more and talking less.  Archie and Tina are the only ones talking to me at the moment.  It hurts since my life revolves around this building; the only people I really interact with are here.

            Do I go out?  Yeah.  But not like I used to, not like the year I came here and spent months going from casino to casino and bar to bar so I'd be acquainted with the city.

            Then two years in, I tapered off my betting nature and the one-drink-a-week habit, staying home and playing on my computer.

            My necklace swings against the fabric and against my chest with an irregular rhythm.  The ring hung on the chain lets off little metallic sounds, reminding me that it's still there.

            Like my soul's insistence that it hasn't gone completely away.

-*-*-

*v* Cassie Jamie *v*

csimiami@cassie-jamie.com


	3. Chapter Three

-*-*-

Tentative

Chapter Three

-*-*-

            "You have how many brothers and sisters?" Lindsay asks me, kneeling on the break room couch. Catherine's sister dropped her off around midnight because of a medical emergency.

            Of course, a call came in five minutes later and I was forced to become babysitter.  A job I normally am quite happy with…except looking at her sweet little face right now, it makes me think of Kia when we were little.

            "I have six brothers and two sisters." I tell her, noting the yawn she tries to stifle.

            "Wow!" She exclaims straight into a second expression of sleep, "I don't even have _one_!"

            I laugh at her innocent comment, "Well, you're lucky to have your mommy all to yourself.  I had to share _everything_.  My room, my clothes, my toys.  There were so many of us that for a while we had to have a schedule to take a shower.  And we didn't have a computer until I was nineteen."

            Her eyes widen, "You didn't have a computer?"

            "Nope.  We never had the money for it." I shovel a bit of my dinner into my mouth, and offer her some of the Thai Pad Noodles, "Careful.  It's hot."

            But she still takes some and slurps as she eats.  Smacks her lips, "That's good!"

            "It's okay." I shrug, "I like Russian food better.  My mommy and daddy make great kulich." I knowingly use that word so she'll ask about food and nothing more about my family.

            "Kul…kuli…" She works on repeating the word.

            "Kulich.  It's a bread we make during Easter.  With raisins and almonds.  It's very good."

            She eyes me, trying to judge if I'm lying.  Probably because the last time she heard that Catherine was shoving some sort of health food at her.

            I smile, "I promise it's good.  I'll have to bring you to a holiday dinner.  Then you can try everything." I sip the broth, pause for a second to think of something else she might like and speak again, "You might like paskha boyarskaya and kutya.  Although my grandmother would be a little scared if I were giving you kutya."

            "Why?" The team's returned; Cath's wandering in.

            I blush a little, "It's a food that symbolizes fertility.  It's something we all eat, even my six-year old sister, but…"

            "Ah.  Old fashioned woman." She smirks, brushing a few hairs from the little girl's brazen eyes, "I think we might want to keep that from her until she's married." The blonde leans so she's nose to nose with her daughter, "Why don't you go hang out with Archie?  I heard he got a new computer game today."  
            "Okay!" Off without a second thought, nary a look back to me.

            "I thought your family was Norwegian." The woman asks, while everyone settles into various pieces of furniture.

            "One quarter.  My grandfather was a Russian immigrant.  After they got tossed from the country they went back to Russia and raised my mother in this tiny town in Siberia.  Mama met Papa one day returning from the market nearby, the fell in love, got married and moved to California a week before Kia and I were born." I summarize, "I speak Norwegian, but I know very little about the country.  I'm too much a child of the Rodina to really care anyway."

            "Rodina?"

            Grissom cuts in, "It's what people call the land.  Holy Mother Russia." He explains, not quite hitting the nail on the head.  It's close enough for me, so I nod.

            "Pretty much." I start to leave the room, start to flow back to my part of the lab to finish running the tests I got handed a half hour ago plus what ever had to have shown up when they re-entered CSI.

            "Greg.  Wait." Nick starts, "We'd like to talk to you if it's alright.  Ya' know maybe we can tell you about our families."

            They're curious.  I'll humor them for now, drop them a few crumbs so they will leave me alone for a while, "Alright.  What do you want to know?" I collapse to the floor and lay my back against the counter.

            "Why'd you change your name?" Sara prods, looks at me guiltily, "You said your middle name was Luka, but I remember you got mail here a couple of times that was addressed to Luka Petrov-Sanders."

            Snort, "My grandparents…they think this is all a phase that I'll outgrow.  But when I left, I cast off my ties and took Nanek's name." I see the confusion in their eyes, "My grandmother.  Her last name was Sanders before she married Tatek." I pause, "So I took off from Cali to come here and figured I'd start over on my own."

            "But you kept in touch with your family…"

            "Well, my plan had been to leave and change my name but I had a picture of my three youngest siblings and I couldn't imagine never hearing their voices again." I sigh, let my head lull against the white cabinets, "I spent far too much time with them to just give them up like they meant nothing at all to me."

            "Which three?" Willows asks, shifting slightly forward and watching me with intent eyes.

            "Nikolai, Aleksey and Tassie." I respond.  There's a crystal clear image in my head of them, when the latter two were newborns and we all stood around marveling at the new beings, thinking at how amazing it was that what was once cells had become sweet little infants.

            We were hope-ridden then.

            Their heads bob, and they process this information.  I allow myself rise from the cool floor, dust my hands on my jeans, "Listen.  I'm gonna go see what work I have left to do.  Then I'll come by and say my goodbyes."

            Sullenly, they do not remark when I leave on a journey to the locker room, crawl slowly down the hallway with my hands in my pockets so I can't scratch at my stomach.

            The burn itches like hell.  It was probably a second degree, judging from the damage, but the last time I went to the hospital for treatment they were calling me a suicide attempt.  Made me spend the night in the psych ward until I demanded to be released.

            I won't make that mistake ever again.

            I give in and lift the gauze pad protecting it.  Let my fingers graze over it, not with nails…fingertips rough-kind over the sore skin.  I hit the doorway and remove my appendages from under my shirt.

            Grissom watches me when I enter the room, seems to know that I'm leaving possibly to never come back; to never step within the confines of this lab ever again.

            Oddly, that prospect doesn't bother me like I thought it would.

            When he follows me, I'm not surprised.  The others probably volunteered him.  He speaks and I listen out of respect because I enjoy his quick wit and lithesome remarks, "I put you in for a leave of absence for the next month.  If you need longer, call.  If you need someone to talk to, call."

            Gods, I can't believe this.  I can't believe these people I've worked with for the last five years and their sudden behavior.

            Perhaps I should have told them more.  Maybe something about being seven, but caring for my younger siblings while my mother puked on the bathroom floor and my father was god-knows-where.  Or my brother Fyodor's junior high graduation when I had to get all nine of us dressed, fed, and transported to the school; Mama was in the hospital for alcohol poisoning and Papa was 'working overtime'.

            I wipe the lone tear that's tracking cold down my cheek, "'S funny.  My father has to be dying for any one to say they're sorry or to even offer me their time to talk." I straighten up and slip off my lab coat, my shirt, "No one ever cared about me before."

            "What the…" His fingers come to rest on the largest portion of burn marks, high on the column of my spine, "Greg?"

            "Scars.  From the explosion, but mostly from a fire when I was a kid." I shrug them off because he can only see my back from this angle, while I pull on a clean Good Charlotte tee and change my shoes.

            He must furrow his brow, "Why didn't you ever tell us about that?"

            Do I tell him off?  Do I tell him my reasons for avoiding the topic like the goddamn plague?  Or do I answer his question with all the sincerity and truth I can muster from the confines of my morality?

            I grab my bag from its storage in the locker, then turn around slowly.  Train my sickening gaze of severe distrust on his unknowing face, "Because no one ever asked."

            And I leave, close my locker and spin the combination lock before speeding from the room and for my car.  Sara calls to me as I stroll further and further from where she and the rest of the team stand with what they once thought was perfect clarity of me.

            Their perceptions were wrong.  I'm not afraid to tell them such, but I won't.  Doesn't matter anymore.

            I'm so tired of people assuming things about me, as if they knew me.  There's only one person that has any semblance of right to do so – Grissom.  Because I had to tell him about my name change when I applied for a job and because he's talked to my mother for fifteen minutes once before.

            I trust him to keep that information in that safe he calls a mind.

            My car has somehow started and begun driving, though I don't recall doing anything to facilitate those acts.  Nonetheless, I continue toward the airport careful to stop at the red lights and keep my eyes on the road.  Lord knows what would happen if I didn't.

            Crash.  Kill.  Become a statistic.

            Like Nikolai' girlfriend, victim of a hit and run.

            I've never been in one, but I've down the tests for them time and time again.  The loss of kids lives when a seatbelt or a working airbag could've saved them…  It's a waste, and it's heartbreaking.

            And I won't be one of them.

            The rain pounds down suddenly and pours out on to the road like Niagara Falls, making it extremely slick and slippery.  Gibbery, forcing the inexperienced from the pavement and into the confines of parking lots.  I now have the road to myself; I downshift to maintain traction.

            But I still feel the wheels begin to spin in the puddles of the Strip.  I try to pull off the road, make an effort to get out of the path of incoming traffic as I skid.  I curve.  I slam the breaks and careen out of control.

            Oh please God, please watch over me and anyone in my path.  Fuckfuckfuck.  Damnit!

            I can already see the SUV swerving in an effort to avoid me…

-*-*-

*v* Cassie Jamie *v*

csimiami@cassie-jamie.com


	4. Chapter Four

-*-*-

Tentative

Chapter Four

-*-*-

            There's a chaos of sound around me as my eyelids peel open.  Assaulting noises of machinery, people, and packages being ripped open.  Doctors and nurses flutter around me hurriedly, wearing yellow gowns or scrubs in dark blue.

            Something – a needle – pricks into the already abused and bruised flesh of my arms and I cry out at it, kick against the harsh fabric sheet sitting against my burned, scarred, and bleeding legs.  A person calls out, "Sinus rhythm!" while another yells, "He's bleeding bad!  Get a unit of O-neg in here!" and after an inch of neglect, I am noticed.

            "Sir?  Sir, can you tell us your name?" One brunette pleads with me, silver-blue eyes which are rimmed in brown connect with mine.

            I wish I knew which one to tell her, since I have no clue, but, "Greg." rolls over my tongue of its own accord.  My chest hurts so bad I can hardly breath and choke out the rest, "Sanders."

            One the two that hide my past, present, and future.  Yet for the moment, it serves me – if they cannot reach my family, they will at least find someone to call from CSI.  Though I'm not sure how nor do I concern myself with the details of such.

            "Greg Sanders?" She asks, inking each letter onto her pants' leg.

            Nod, then a redheaded man starts handing out orders, "I need an ABG!" He shouts and turns to me, "Greg, besides your chest, what else hurts?"

            Oh…uh, _everything_!  I manage to state, "My stomach." through the steady pulsation of penknife pains in my side.

            And I should not have said that because there are fingers there posthaste, probing until I cry, beg, wince and whine for him to stop, "I know it hurts, Greg." He wrings out and yells out for someone to call a surgeon, "He's bleeding!"

            No shit, Sherlock!  You went through medical training for eight years to decree a car crash vic's bleeding?  Idiot.  The agony hits with the intensity of a star gone nova in a sole second, "My head!" I reach one hand up to scratch…have to get it to stop; to end and leave me to my demise.

            "Greg!  Greg, stop!  Someone get his other hand!"

            Nurses are holding me, pressing me into the soft mattress and hold my fingers in a deathgrip.  I want only to make myself bleed more, "Make it go away!  It hurts!"

            "What hurts?" The doctor is asking me, "Greg?  What hurts?" He's pulled my hand into his and is practically in the bed with me, he's so close, "I can't make it stop if you don't tell me what's hurting!" He informs as if I'm not fully aware that he's _not_ a mind-reader.

            "My head!  My head burns!  Oh, please, just make it stop!" There's tears flowing freely, soaking every material as it mingles with my own blood to form puddles of watery crimson.

            "Tell Claire to meet us in MRI!"

            We're moving now and the ceiling tiles pass over me so quickly it makes me unnervingly dizzy.  I vomit up my Thai, continue to try to claw at my forehead.  Someone wipes the mess away with their hand and another grasps both my wrists.

            I want to sleep, want to close my eyes and go away from this pained reality if only for a few hours.

            Escape away into the abyss of haunted dreams where there are people who will be responsible for me instead of the other way around.  Creative stories of finding a girlfriend, like I once had in Aria, who will love me all the same, through thick and through thin.

            Calming memories, recreated in Technicolor, of spending time with tiny Nikolai while my sister and mother sewed his Christening suit out of silk and satin in baby-blue, heather-green, and cream-white.

            "Greg, stay awake!" The doctor demands, "You may have a head injury."

            Uh huh.  That's not really a reason for me to keep myself alert.  Hell, at this point if I were to die, would it make a huge difference in the world?  Not really.

            "Talk to us, Greg." They're running now, shoving me down the measureless corridor, "Tell us about your family."

            "Big.  Nordic and Slavic." I reply.  The world is getting fluffy around the edges and hazy-sounding as though my head's been filled with cotton, "I'm the oldest."

            The redhead hums, turns me sharply into the room housing the giant machine.  It drones and clicks; I'm lifted up by the edges of the sheet and shifted onto the bed, "Any sisters?"  
            I go to answer, except the ache in my lungs lurches forward.  Instead of expelling air, the crimson trickles out.

            "Everyone out!  Get this thing started!  And where the hell is Claire?!"

            MRI swipes me in, courses through its needed procedures and extracts me back into the careful arms of the hospital staff.

            "Greg." A blonde woman looks at me, "I'm Dr. Dean.  I'm going to take you to the OR while Dr. Circe looks over your results, alright?"

            "My head." I croak.  Please, Lord, this is torment.  End it.  Someone chants my name, yet it does not defeat my eyes from closing tight and launching me in the pitch darkness.

-*-*-

            I wake slowly, drowning in the florescent lighting of my dull-white room.  The windows are covered with thick white curtains to block out what is assuredly yellow daylight.

            Dr. Circe, who I assume must be the redhead from some time ago, is standing in my doorway with people I can't focus on.

            "He's had a good crack to the head and several of his internal organs are torn.  His left leg is broken in several places." Huffing from Circe, "But there's some burn scars that I'm worried about."

            Then Grissom's voice and I realize that he must be one of the person-shaped blurs.  Some thing is about to blow up in my face, "He said they were from a fire as a child."

            "Some of them are.  I know from prior reports he was injured in the Crime Lab's explosion, but there are others."

            "Others?"

            The doctor nods, and glances back at me, "Ones on his abdomen and inner thighs.  I think they're self-inflicted."

            I was wondering how the secret would come out.  Whether I'd blow up at my family one day, thereby freeing myself of the act I concocted or if it would happen such as it has.

            My boss, Sara, Uncle Paul and mother suddenly are in the room, staring holes into my body – straight to the empty soul I've acquired over the last decade and a half.

            "Luka?" Mama's voice is still so homey and cozy to me, even after the hell she put me through.  Because I know she loves me and she never laid so much as a fingertip on me, "Sweetheart?"

            Go to roll over to look at her.

            "No, mladenets, don't move.  You've got stitches in your side." She tells me, stroking my cheek like she did when I was fifteen and stripped down to my underwear from a raging fever.

            "Mama." My hand reaches to her, and she grasps it within her petite own.  A thick of sandy-blonde hair hangs onto my shoulder, "What happened?"

            "You don't remember?" She implores.  She must look up at Grissom, as his eyes break from watching me momentarily.

            He answers, "You were hit by an SUV and then a van.  It's a miracle you survived."

            "Oh."

            "Luka." Dyadya is looking levelly at me, "Do you hurt yourself?"

            I try to gauge the expression he wears.  Does he really want to hear the truth?  Or should I sugarcoat it?  Or lie my ass off?  Although with him, lying usually ends with tears – because the liar feels guilty.

            So I opt to ignore the question and turn to my peer, "Why'd you come?  You don't like me."

            And with a look of absolute despair, Sidle replies, "I came because you are my friend, or I believe you are, and you got hurt badly." She pauses, absolutely flustered, "I think you do hurt yourself, Greg.  For as long as I've known you, you're never without a lighter nearby and you're always scratching your stomach."

            "What would it matter if I were?" I mutter, "No one cares anyway."

            There's collective intake.  There's a verbal berating coming, I know it.  Or at least that's what my mind tells me.  My heart, on the other hand…

            "It would matter very much, Pervyj." My nickname rolls off of Grissom's tongue like it belongs there.

            "I haven't been called Pervyj since I was twelve."

            The rubbing begins again; I missed it so.  My mother kisses my temple, "Oh, my mal'chik.  I'm taking you home soon.  Mama will take care of you like I should of when you were little."

            A lone tear drips onto my neck, "I'm slommanyj.  My soul…it's bol'no."

            There's another kiss pressed to my forehead, "I know." She whispers to me, in that voice that is not the one from my nightmares or the one which screams at me from my answering machine tapes, "I'll make it better, Luka."

            But I don't know if I want to go home.  Nor do I want to remain in Las Vegas.  I don't know where I want to go, aside from wanting – _needing_ – to be away from everyone and everything.

            "I've already started making arrangements for a temporary tech to take over for you while you're gone.  You can take as much time as you desire."

            Sara's eyes twinkle with the reality that's in front of her.  In one day, I've destroyed her whole idea of who I am.  I wonder what the boss bribed her with to make her come here or if Catherine sent her as the voice of methodical reason.  Either way, she should not be subjected to this.  She's too lovely a presence for this.

            "Don't look at me like that.  I know what it means, Greggo." A bittersweet smile, "I came of my own accord."

            "Go."

            "Do you really want me to?"

            I shrug as best I can hooked up to a hundred different IVs and electrodes and held in the bed by my weaken muscles, "No.  Figured I'd get you to go away for a little while so I could rant."

            She leans over and offers, "Nice try, but if my name's to be mentioned, I want to be here."

            "No, you don't."

            The anger boiling within the pit of my belly screams, erupts, devoid of any warning, "Fuck all this!  I've taken care of _myself_ since I was a kid!  I still take care of myself without anyone's help, so why do all of you want to start now?  Huh?  I'm pretty damn confused about all this!" I bellow, the rolling sound thundering in the hallway, "So what if I injure myself?  Would you prefer the real Greg at work?"

            Panting, I listen as each replies.

            "First of all, Greg, you never had to rely on just yourself once you came to work with us.  If you'd asked, we all would have been there.  Second, the glimpse we got of the real Greg in the breakroom today makes me want to know you for the personality that lies within." The boss instructs me, "After you left, we all agreed we wanted to find out who was behind all those layers you use to hide."

            "We did." A breathy lisp from the gap-toothed brunette.

            Should I take heed of that?  Is it really _that_ important that my once reserved, uncaring colleagues wish to know me now when I'd rather not allow them that privilege?

            Still, they want to know me.  They're offering to make me a little less lonely in this world that is cruel and hellish, loathsome.  Catherine and Warrick and Nick and Sara and Grissom…perhaps I can gain allies against the other techs with members of the team, or maybe they will see how I have _grown up_ over the time I have worked for them.

            Mama pats my back, "I have years to make up to you, baby.  Years that I should've spent raising you and your brothers and your sisters.  You will never understand the guilt I feel at having neglect you like I did, letting your father do to you…" She holds back a choking sob, "You went away and we allowed you to go, when we should've held on tighter.  I won't make that mistake again.  I won't let you push your family away anymore, Luka."

            "I don't want to go to Cali."

            "Then we will stay here." Dyadya Paul trails a palm over my foot, my toes.  Makes me laugh when he hits a ticklish spot.

            He always did know how to make me happy when I needed it most; when my blood ran cold from taunts or hatred.

            "And don't think you can escape us either.  We're going to be here every step of the way."

            Oh, dearest heavens…I'm surrounded by them.  Pathetic, hopeful people who think they can change me from who I am to something "better".  Well, fuck that.  I'm me, and I will not deviate.

-*-*-

*v* Cassie Jamie *v*

csimiami@cassie-jamie.com


	5. Chapter Five

-*-*-

Tentative

Chapter Five

-*-*-

            Seventeen days they keep me contained in the stark, blinding, sterile building, eagle-watched by Circe and various nurses.  My skin heals in perfect seams, but they want me there for another reason – to relieve their consciences of whatever they feel plagues me.

            They don't know what sits beneath the eddying surface.  And they never will.

            Twice there was a demand for me to seek the guidance of a licensed therapist; I rebuked both the recommendations and the person from the psych ward who was sent to see me.

            Finally, they no longer could hold me – like a prisoner – and released me to the safety of my home.  My apartment, now the domicile of my mother, uncle, Nick, and my twin sister.

            I groan immediately upon entering the door, "What the hell are all of you doing here?"  No one responds while I get a good look around.

            It's not surprising in the least that they have cleaned up, but it's…geez.  It's comforting that people actually took the time to spruced up the atrocity that was this space.  My computer can actually be used now, because it's been taken out of the box and assembled.  The dirty clothes I hadn't had time to clean are folded neatly on the bottom stair of the spiral which heads to my loft bedroom.  All the dirty plates and take-out food containers are trashed, replaced with clean pots, pans, and china.

            My sofa is recognizable as a piece of furniture and all the end/coffee tables are no longer covered with articles and books, as they've been placed onto the bookcases that had been housing my knickknacks.  The small items now sit atop the piano and other, more convenient surfaces.  The paintings and photos I wanted to hang have been, in tasteful places.

            "Well, hello to you too." Evdokia looks at me with that look…that look that asks 'what-are-you-doing-to-yourself?' and requires an answer.

            But I don't need to tell her what I have been doing, because she already knows and she's probably formulating a plan to get me to some mental professional's office.  Worse, if that's truly so, I _will end up at one.  I cannot and will not fight with Kia.  I've fought many battles with her.  And lost every single one._

            "Kia…please…I'm tired." I want so badly to slip into Russian and say what I have to say to her, but I was taught manners.  Manners that dictate that I won't speak a language if not everyone understands it.  We'll have her conversation in the near future, when there are far less people around us.  "I just want to sleep."

            She smiles that calming smile, "I put lavender oil on your bed."

            "Damn you." It's an automatic reply to her memories, as only my darling sister would manage to recall with clarity that I sleep best when a little spritz of the flower's scent is laid onto my bed linens.

            My twin merely continues her grinning, says nothing.  Instead, she shoves me, to the horror of everyone else.  To me, it's just another measure of how much she loves me.

            Even if it will end in heartbreak, she _does_ love me intensely and I'm not afraid to say how much I love her either.  It's just that I know in the end she will discover that I'm not worth saving, not worth being someone she should know.  It's part of the reason I left home in the first place.  So she could learn to live without me at her side.

            Unlike our childhood.

            _The sixteen-year old bully ran off, clutching his nose while it bled sparkly.  It slipped through the crevices of his fingers, dripping to his shoes and staining the ground._

            _At fifteen, I already had a reputation.  A reputation my father's proud of even though I am not, because he says it make me a man.  All I feel is angry that people have turned me into this when all they have to do is stop taunting and teasing my family.  So what if we're first generation Americans and there's so many of us we have to share clothes?  Last I checked, not everyone can afford the best tee-shirts and slacks._

            _Evdokia__ sniffs and rubs her hands on her too-big jeans.  A 'gift' from our oh-so-loving Papa, "Luka?"_

            _"Yeah?"__ I call back, watching her.  Knowing a breakdown would be occurring before the day was over, in the second-floor girls' bathroom, alone and silent.  That's her nature and I wish she would just cry right here and now._

            _"You're always going to be here, right?  Always gonna love me, no matter what?" Her eyes are wide.  Crystal looking almost as she holds back from crying, even if she has the right to do so at this point.  She never was one to show intense emotions in front of strangers and, aside from me and our brothers, every person in the school is tagged as a stranger._

            _"Da, Kia.  Forever beside you."_

            We were kids, young and naïve and already a little world-weary.  Unnerved by life and its assorted turns.  That day…I knew that day that if I broke any one promise to my siblings – it would be that tiny, moronic exception.

            The moment I reared back to sock the other kid, the exact second that my fist connect with his jaw, that I was not destined to remain in Cali with my family.  I despised thinking that way for the rest of high school because my siblings needed me to tend to them.  But I know I would never have survived if I had, and back then, my heart shouted that information to my head like a chainsaw though I chose to avoid hearing it.

            "Sleep, Greg." She stands below me, at the foot of the stair, and looks up, "If I don't hear snoring, I'll come up there and lay down with you!"

            "That's a real threat, Kia.  Lemme tell you."

            I crawl into the blankets, remembering the first time she'd called me by that nickname.  Sophomore year of College, March – two days after I decreed my intent to escape our family.  She called me that.  Because she was scared.  Scared of what it would mean when I left and _she was the oldest.  Scared to understand that our then-youngest brothers, Peter and Nikolai, would be have to be protected, like England did for Belgium way back when._

            My skin creeps and slithers, or at least feels like it does, until my nails drift, search my nightstand drawer.

            Nick calls up, "It's not there.  We took the lighters away." I can here the disappointment in his voice and I rather _don't care.  No one from CSI wanted to see me for me until they realized I'm not an airhead; I offered Sara chances to know me, let Grissom know some of my past in the hopes he'd ask why I'd changed my name.  But they never returned the gestures._

            The logic makes sense though.  They took my lighters because if I hurt myself with fire, remove the fire.  They don't know how many other ways there are to burn, like rugs or hot water.  And I doubt any of them will realize it until the deed is done.  Until the water has begun rolling down my back in waves, leaving red welts and stinging scalds from the spray.

            For now, I scratch thin lines up and down my arms.  Little blood bubbles appear; flex my arm and the crimson slips to the formerly white sheets.  Pinpricks of the color against the starkness that reminds me so much of the hospital.  There I was guarded from my family.  Perhaps I should have listened to the doctor's recommendations that I seek 'professional help' for my 'self-destructive behavior'.

            Perhaps.

            Then again, that would require that I actually intend to pay heed to…this.  Thus requiring I felt that hurting myself is a problem.

            It isn't.  It injures only me and no other person.  And what I do in the privacy of my own home is none of their concern, because a few weeks from now we'll be back to the way it always was.  My family removed from my life barring the once-a-week phone call to chitchat about Papa and the weather; my oh-so-unhappy coworkers back to harassing me for results and telling me that I'm a waste of skin.  I know this and I'm okay with it.

            Since I make no qualms about the fact that my life will most probably end at my own hand.  It is a notion that I am no longer in fear of.  Hell, I welcome it and with an open heart, am ready to pass on to the next world.

            "I warned you." My sister teases, pressing up to loft and slipping into the covers beside me.  She chooses to not mention the blood now resting on her.  Her hand finds mine, and, if someone who didn't know us were to see this scene unravel, would assume we were lovers when she lays her head on my chest, wraps a leg around mine.  Decidedly un-sibling like behavior.

            Except when we were children, we have one blanket for the entire family, which always went to keep Kiev, Mikhail, and Fyodor warm at night while Evdokia and I soothed each other with our own body heat and a few scraps of tee shirt for pillows.

            "I missed you so much.  If it weren't for Leks and Tas, I would have come years ago.  Could have been roommates all over again." She tells me with a sniffle.

            "I know you would've, Sis." My fingers reach her hair, to the spot at the base of her hairline that puts her to sleep in milliseconds.

            I won't cry.  I will not.  Must be strong.

            "We're so fucked up, Luka." There's a giggle in her words, as though it weren't something that we both already knew and loathe.  She smiles into my chest.

            So I laugh back, "Yes, we are.  And I wouldn't have it any other way."

            Because I would rather the life I have than one with a June Cleaver mother and a father who works a nine-to-five, a singular brother or sister.  A white picket fence in the suburbs…that isn't us.  It's the American dream my parents wanted and what we got was an American life – something I cannot trade.

            "Remember when Niko was born?  Those big eyes.  I thought he'd be the one to change things."

            Instead it was the birth of the second set of twins that turned the tables.  Aleksey and I share the wonderful gift of Hemophilia, and Tassie, his twin and my baby sister, needed emergency surgery to correct problems with her heart and lungs.  She narrowly survived, spent the first nine months of her life in an incubator in the NICU.

            "Kiev's little mouth." I counter, recalling how he was always on the search for something to eat, "Peter and the light-socket."

            That gets her to laugh, loudly, "I forgot about that!  I swear I thought he'd electrocuted himself!" Kia spits out, hugging me as best she can, "Oh." She sighs, "Niko refused to have his party.  He knows that you were sincere when you said you were coming, and he wants you to be there.  He won't tell anybody 'sides Mama where he's going to college next year." Her eyes seek out mine, blue-crystal on blue-crystal, "All he wants is to see you.  It broke his heart when you went away."

            I knew he would miss me.  I spent so much time with him, teaching him languages and camping out in our backyard or our living room.  And one other…

            "Peter?"

            Blinking she responds, "No one told you." Soft murmur, then, "He's in juvie, Luka.  He…uh…vandalized school property and stole a good seven-hundred dollars of stuff."

            "Those are misdemeanors.  They can't send him to juvie on that!"

            My brother.  In juvie.  Not even where I can protect him from those devoid of scruples.  He's stuck in a cell with other kids, probably put away for much worse crimes, waiting to go home.  My heart and stomach twists with the idea that he's away from the people that love him, would do anything for him.

            "They can because it wasn't the first time he got in trouble." She closes her eyes and refuses to look at me anymore, "He painted your name on the gym lockers one day while everyone was in class."

            There it is.  The un-critical blame that she'll never say _was_ a blame.

            My old instincts kick in and I want nothing more than to fly home, reprimand him while I hold Nikolai close, and make everything go back to normal.  Yet I can't do that any more.

            "How long?"

            "Another two months.  He tries to be brave when we visit, but…Luka, I can tell he barely sleeps.  He's so scared." Her nails dig into my sides, unconscious reaction to being upset.  Warm-wet seeping into my clothes, tears she sheds silent.

            I cannot fix it, I cannot change what has occurred.

            "Hey, babies." Mama calls up the stairs, "I made mushroom soup with ushki and your brother's chicken." 

            We let loose a little snort at our mother, "She's still calling it Kiev's chicken, eh?" I ask my beloved twin sister.

            Rising she nods, "Yep.  He says he hates it, but he smiles every time she says it." She holds out a hand and pulls me up, "Let's get you cleaned up first and then we'll eat." Guides me down the stairs, clicking on my stereo as we walk to the bathroom.  Strains of **Gotham****City fill the room, causing her to grin that silly grin I haven't seen since she was a youth.**

            A giggle and we're dancing, twirling around the room.  Threading through, around my dining table, past my piano and into the kitchen.  "A city of peace for everyone of us…" I sing as she hums and claps her hands against my back in a deft rhythm.

            The song ends and **Foolish Games** begins; she pulls me into my huge bathroom, pulls one of the washcloths from their place beside the medicine cabinet.  Dampens it with lukewarm water, cleans off the dried blood on herself and I, covers the skin-rips with gauze wrap and kisses my palm, "Please, Luka, for me.  Try to stop this.  Come back to me."

            I know what she means.  That plea is not for me to go home to Cali.

            That plea is for me to change back to what I was.  Back to the teenager with the impenetrable heart, barriers built around his every feeling.

            And I can't go back to that.

-*-*-

*v* Cassie Jamie *v*

csimiami@cassie-jamie.com


	6. Chapter Six

-*-*-

Tentative

Chapter Six

-*-*-

            By nightfall, Nick has gone and I've made my uncle return home with a promise that I'll be nice to my mother.

            I'm such a fucking liar.

            "Greg?" Kia calls, "Mama's gonna be back soon." She tells me.  No real emotion, no tone when she lisps out the m-word, because she still harbors contempt for our parents.

            I wasn't the only one to lose a childhood.

            "Evdokia, don't be mad at Mama.  Not anymore.  It was Papa's fault that she started drinking and my fault that I didn't think to say to Tatek that we needed him to help us."

            Without warning, she flies up the stairs and lands on top of me, "Take that back!  Take it back right now, Luka Gregori Petrov!  We were _children_!" She hisses, half-enraged and half-crying, "It was not our _job to do what we were made to do.  That is what our parents were for." Her grip on my arms tightens and soothes, tightens and soothes as she flexes her fingers unconsciously._

            "Ki…Kia…I need you to get of…off of me and then you can yell at me." I struggle out because her elbow is digging into my chest, where I'm still bruised from the impact I made contact with my steering wheel through the airbag, "My chest, sis."

            Clambering off my bed and off of me, her look grows to horror, "Oh, fuck.  I'm sorry, Greg."

            And I know she is.  One glance into her eyes, however, informs me that she's starting to feel guilty for hurting me further.  It's something that's been force-fed to this A/V analysis expert, the idea that she's responsible if pain comes to be inflicted upon someone.

            "I'm alright.  Just couldn't breathe for a second there." I smile, albeit weakly at her, "You can resume your verbal berating."

            She's too sullen and merely escapes to the first floor, taking my ringing phone with her.  I know it's one of the various doctors who treated me.  No doubt calling to ask the mediocre question of 'How's Greg?' and detail a treatment plan for me.

            As if I'd ever stick to it.

            My twin purrs out 'um hum' and states 'Yes, sir' a few times, before dropping the item onto the kitchen counter with a plastic thud, "What the hell are they thinking?" She mutters.

            "Uh, could you let the injured one know you're talking about?" I inquire, making my way down to her and my battered calling device.

            "They actually want you to work." She exclaims.

            One eyebrow peaks, "That's unusual, how?  Evdokia, I don't know what goes on at home, but here in Vegas, we work." Oh the irony in that statement, "Murderers and rapists don't take the day off because little Greggo Sanders got hurt."

            "I guess I should find you some clean clothes then." On her last nerve and it's stretched drum-skin taut, "What do you normally wear there?"

            "Jeans.  Tee shirt.  Sneakers." I tally off, "Same as you wear to your crime lab."

            "Not anymore." She comments, "Dress code was instituted a few weeks ago.  No casual dress – no shorts or tee shirts or running shoes.  I have to go dressed in nice slacks and button-down shirts with dress shoes of some sort.  I never thought I'd hate high heels as much as I do now." She exits my bathroom, an amused expression, "None of us can make heads or tails of the new policy, considering we're not the ones who go into the field, but they're the bosses."

            She tosses the garments at me that she's picked – a white-and-grey baseball shirt, nearly skin-tight worn-in jeans, and Halloween boxers.  A pair of white ankle socks to match and one of my blue tennis shoes.  Then she excuses herself to use my shower, complaining that she smells.

            Hopeful I can switch outfits before my mother waltzes in through the front door.  Lounge pants off, underwear too.  New ones cover over the still-healing wounds on my lower legs and knees, then the process is repeated for the rest.

            In time for Mama to re-enter my home, "Ah, look who's up from his nap."

            Why is she talking to me like I'm five?

            "I'm not a child anymore, Mama.  We established this.  You cannot reclaim the past with me.  I'm sorry." I remind her, hoping she still recalls that we had a conversation like this one before.

            She's crestfallen, says nothing.  Instead, taking her leave and walking to the couch, "Where are you going?" She asks, hitting the cushions.

            _'Away from you.'_ What I think, not what I say.  No, what I tell her is, "The doctor called and said I can work.  So I am getting out of this house for a little while.  I'm going to call someone and see if they can swing by and pick me up." Grab the phone.

            Don't fight with me.  Please don't fight with me.

            "You can't go to work!" She pleas, "Stay.  Your boss…"

            "Mama, I am not going to sit here and remain idle." We'll just leave off any indication that it is what I normally do anyhow, or that I really could care less about my j-o-b.

            Grab the phone, click out the digits swiftly, and wait for someone to pick up before I speak, "Hi, Catherine."

            **"Greg?  Are you alright?"**

            "Fine.  I…uh…the doctors say I can work, but my car is obviously out of commission.  Do you think you could come by and get me?"

            **"Yeah.****  No problem.  I have to drop off Lindsay at my sister's first.  So…maybe ten, fifteen minutes?"**

            "That's great.  Thanks, Catherine." I say my goodbye and she retorts with her own.  I always knew I liked her – she can be a bitch, but she's still nice to me and that's something.

-*-*-

            Catherine raps on my door lightly, testing the waters, then knocks harder, "Greg." Her voice is soft and tired.

            Evdokia opens the wooden barrier, as I search beneath my couch for my missing shoe, "He's almost ready." My sister informs her with a wry smile and a dry laugh.

            "What'd you lose, Greggo?"

            "My shoe." I reply, when my fingers hit the sole of the item, "There you are, you little bastard!" I retrieve it from its hiding place and pull it on, triumphant.  Instead of rising from the floor, I turn to face my blonde coworker, "I'm ready when you are."

            She grins, "Let's go.  Grissom's already got something waiting for you at the lab.  From what he said, it's probably extremely important."

            My features contort, my old immediate persona trying to emerge against my will, but I am victorious, "Sounds good to me." The smile is genuine and I can tell that she's a little confused.

            "Okey-dokey."

            And without a second thought, I stand and follow her out, refusing to look at my sister as I exit to the black Tahoe parked at my curb.  The interior smells of chocolate and peanut butter, M&M's scattered throughout the backseat.  The mark of a child's existence.

            Like years ago when I made my first road trip to Vegas with seven-year old Nikolai and nine-year old Peter in the backseat, while I, at eighteen, tried to not jump out of my skin every time a glob of marshmallow fluff hit the windshield.  Parked in the hotel parking lot because I would not valet the car in its condition, I remember yelling, speech peppered with Russian and Norwegian, wielding cleaning supplies and rags, hoping that grape jelly didn't stain.  Nikolai, halfway through my tirade, wrapped his arms around me, and whispered, "I love you, Luka." in that child's voice I couldn't deny.

            I laugh in the wake of that memory.

            Catherine stares at me, a weary glance as though trying to judge if I have lost my fucking mind.  (Too late.  I lost it a long time ago…back when I thought I could save my family.)

            So I choose to calm her fears, "I'm alright.  Lindsay's wake of destruction reminds me of my brothers."

            "Oh." She nods and lets out a silent snort, before removing her vehicle and heading for our place of employment, "Lindsay wants to know if she can come to your house one day.  She said you told her about your skill with a piano and that you promised to teach her."

            I did?  Oh…yeah.  I promised the little munchkin the last time I saw her.  Before the crash.  Before people started pushing their way into my life without permission.

            "It's okay with me.  Just gimme a few more days to heal up and then Linds can come wreck the place."

            The car pulls off the main road and into the lot, into the space marked 'C. Willows' near the door.  I disembark and notice immediately that my own car is sitting in it's customary place – second row, fourth in from the left.  It's badly banged up; dents in all four doors, the trunk now non-existent, and the hood crushed in.  It's missing three of the four hubcaps and the front left wheel is gone completely.  The back windshield is shattered, while the front one has an outward, circular, spider-web pattern.

            "We were called to the accident because no one could figure out who was the negligent driver.  We knew it was your car the minute we saw it." She sighs, "Sara saw where your head hit the glass and Grissom nearly had to send her home."

            "I don't remember too much about what happened.  I spun out because I couldn't maintain traction, ended up in oncoming traffic.  There was an SUV and then nothing."

            She bobs her head, "You hit your head pretty hard, Greg.  Most people lose a few minutes of memory after an injury like that.  Hell, first report we got was from the EMTs who both swore that they didn't think you were going to wake up at all."

            My hand lands on my scalp, where there are stitches holding the skin together.  Once the doctors talked with Grissom, they realized I was a hemophiliac – when sent them on suture mode.  Claire Dean later told me that she had eight different nurses sewing me up while she sped up her actions to alleviate the pain within my abdomen.  Four pints of blood was emptied into me in an hour long period.

            I still have bruises that are achy, but I've learned to live with the pain, "Yeah.  I figured as much."

            "You alright?"

            "Uh huh.  Just a little tired still."

            She pats my shoulder, "Well, I'm glad you're back.  This other guy they brought in can't make heads or tails of the evidence we give him.  We're still trying to figure out how he got hired."

            "Probably banging Eckley." I say nonchalant, but that evil grin I've acquired after years of watching suspects while they are questioned by the CSIs and various detectives has appeared on my lips.

            Catherine laughs, then laughs harder, "You…Oh, Greg…you're probably right!" She manages to get herself under control and flashes one of her infamous smiles, "Come on.  I told the rest of them that I was picking you up and there was immediate talk of parties."

            I groan.

            Parties.  I'm not a big fan of them anymore.

            "I made them promise if they decided on one that they'd have to keep it small.  Besides, they've only had about twenty-five minutes." She says, as though they've never pulled together to do something in that amount of time before.

            We stroll through the open door; past the receptionist who smiles and greets me, even though she's never done that before.  Into the break room, where Warrick, Nick, Grissom, Archie, Lindsay, and several others are standing with a chocolate layer cake and a couple bottles of soda.

            "I thought you weren't involved." I state, venomous, but it's washed away when I hug her, "It's not bad." I'm suddenly enclosed in a pair of skinny, feminine arms, "Hey, you."

            Little Willows leaps up, "I missed you!" Squeezes my chest tight, taking all the air out of me.  
            "I missed you, too!" I spirit out, against the wringing in my heart and the burning in my lungs.

            "Lindsay!  Let go of Greg!"

            As she relinquishes her hold on me, I shake my head, "It's okay, Catherine.  She's just happy to see me."

            "We all are, man.  I swear there a couple minutes there I really didn't know if you were gonna make it.  But I should've known that you're too strong to give up." Nick slaps me on the back, and grins idiotically.

            Is that supposed to mean something to me?  Should I be glad that they've decided to see that I _am human and not a lab rat?_

            I settled for a mock-heartwarming, "Thanks, Nick." instead of the scathing I want to scream out.  Not that I would with the young blonde here anyway.  I'll let her have her time of thinking that the world is good, thinking that not all people are fucking evil beings despite the work her mother does and despite the harsh reality that her daddy is dead and gone.  She deserves that much.

            This replacement kid sister, who I use to right the wrongs of siblings now full of anger toward me.

            "How'd you guys find out about my favorite food?" I ask, gesturing to the sweet on the counter.

            "We asked David.  He said you and a group of people go out to breakfast every Wednesday, and, without fail, you always order a piece of chocolate layer cake." Sara supplies, "We couldn't find one with cherry on the inside so we bought a can of pie filling that you can put on it."

            I cannot believe that David remembered that.  Perhaps he should be the one bucking for a CSI position.

            Perhaps.

            "Remind me to thank him later.  And where's this pie filling?  Forget putting it on the cake…that stuff is great straight up!" I laugh, scratching my ribs through the fabric of my shirt and earning a few smiles from the gang of sudden-friends.

-*-*-

*v* Cassie Jamie *v*

csimiami@cassie-jamie.com


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